Image Focus

You have to be up early to get a shot like this. In Greece, the heat can be unbearable for a portrait shoot in the summer, so we shot as soon as the sun came up at around 6 am.

Then there are the tourists. The shot was taken on the beautiful island of Milos in the Cyclades. It is such a special location, the white beach and rocks of Sarakiniko. The landscape is so striking, but if you want to shoot, you must be finished by around 10 am because of the heat and the tourists.

The shoot was of Evelyn Kazantzoglou, who is a Greek model and influencer, and this shot is part of a cover feature for InStyle magazine, which I took with my Sony Alpha 7 IV and FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II lens. It is a striking image because she is so tall, and her red hair compliments the colour of the blue hues in the sky and her swimsuit. Besides some skin retouching, the image is the same as the raw file from the camera. I made the image a little warmer, but shooting early in the morning, there was already this low, warm light. I did the shot by myself – there were no assistants holding lights or reflectors; the white rock all around acted as a natural reflector, helping to fill the shadow areas. Everything was done organically.

I like to work like that as often as I can – just with me and the model. It is a more seamless experience when you don’t have to worry about lighting and a big crew of people. It sounds like a cliche, as everyone is talking about it, but something else that helps a shoot such as this is the Eye AF on the Sony Alpha cameras. In the past, with a DSLR camera, I would have had to worry about focusing on the eye, but now you can rest assured that the focus is nailed every single time. This allows me to focus on the composition and interacting with the model. It saves time, and the workflow is a lot faster. With the Alpha 7 IV, the 33-megapixel resolution is a sweet spot when working for magazines and print.

I took a closer portrait shot with the Alpha 7R V and the FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II lens, which will be the cover image, but I like this shot with the narrower focus and compressed landscape. Shooting with the 70-200mm allowed me to step back and capture this different perspective of the model in the landscape.

I can’t wait to see the images in the magazine. It’s still nice to see your work in print when you do commercial work. We tend to forget this as everything is consumed digitally nowadays. So, when you see it physically on paper, it feels great. For me, it is what photography is all about.